A Frantic Sprint

And then I ran.

I admit it: I really, really ran that time.

As soon as the apparently interminable nightmare was over, I used all of the strength I had left to run away from the classroom. Not sure of how many minutes I have stood there, I rushed as if to compensate for the time I was completely catatonic and immersed into that wicked reality. I needed no more than a few seconds to move my body so fast anyone would have only seen a blur (if there was someone around to see me running down the hallway, that is).

The school seemed to be much larger now that I was trying to escape it. It didn't look like the place I had been yesterday, and I felt trapped. The crimsonness wasn't present, but the despair wouldn't let me go so easily.

So I ran and ran, but I still could not find a way out.

Like a scared rat in a maze, I kept running around without as much as a clue. Every room seemed dangerous and after that event, I felt like I was inside the enemy, but not in a good way. Not like Odysseus entering the city inside the Trojan horse but like a sinking boat. There were no visible exits to me; my brain had shut down and the single thing that stopped me from, well, stopping was sheer primal fear. When restrained, all I could think about was running away from that. Now I could only run, not thinking at all.

Every step meant nothing.

I jumped down the stairs, and without any grace gravity made me meet the ground with the same intensity I had inside of me.

Every sweat drop meant nothing.

I ached. Every single bit of me hurt, because I had accidentally bashed my knees and arms into objects while searching for a way out. The pain was now steady, controlled chaos striking.

Every breath meant absolutely nothing.

There was nothing particularly poetic or symbolic about it. Just despair.

Despair was everything, everywhere.

So I ran, falling several times and scraping my body here and there but not paying much attention to it. I was too scared to think about pain at that moment.

Too scared.

...

Eventually, I found an exit.

I ran towards it and found myself out of the school building, and a few seconds later I had passed the school entrance gates. Leaving a dumbfounded Shiina Ryo who tried to greet me behind. Without looking back even once.

I ran.

Astonishingly realistic butterflies dance in the air, encircling me majestically as if to properly execute a ceremony to crown me King of Infinite Space. Playing the role of a true born star, my presence naturally provides illumination and warmness to the minuscule living bodies that gravitate around me. There is order in the expanding Universe, finally.

That's what they probably think. I guess.

To me, however, they are just like mere flies attracted to a cheap light they truly believe to be heaven. Also, I am most likely an ordinary man bound in a nut shell, without anything but his extraordinary inborn ability to attract the obscure almost instantly along with a high dosage of mostly justified paranoia.

Yes, my rationality is back, thank you for asking. Unfortunately, so is my chronic negativism.

I ended up at the same park I visited on Sunday, and only because I was too tired to keep running at random. Despite being used to running away from things and places, I am not very good at de facto running. Quite interesting, huh? My legs sorely hurt and I felt my whole body was bruised and/or scraped, so when I ran out of energy I simply allowed Mrs. Gravity to put me down as delicately as she could, laying me on the grassy ground. She's not really gentle, Mrs. Gravity. I'll keep that in mind.

Feeling slightly better, I tried to stand up just to find out that I couldn't; since I had no balance nor strength left I fell again, feeling like my legs were an imploding building. Sitting on my legs, I decided to quit trying to stand up. Maybe it's better for me to stay like this for a while.

Then I had the faux poetic butterfly moment and now I'm here.

Alone.

Surrounded by trees and not caring much about that. I do know that wasting time thinking about it means I do care, even if only a little. However, I just wanted to state that I am not, at least not in this very moment, afraid of, say, trees. Just for the record.

And since I'm being honest, it wasn't the distorted world I saw that scared me.

How can I say it without sounding like an idiot? I want to avoid clichés and tropes, but it is really hard to me. I am not that good at expressing myself, and that's probably the main reason why people often think badly of me. The truth is usually simple, but making a poor choice of words can ruin a lawyer's good case and convict an innocent man. Hence, I'll try to be as direct as I can and hope I don't ruin everything as I usually do.

Here we go: while I cannot deny the fact that I was afraid of something, I can only say that it wasn't the red dimension that scared me. That's because I had seen worse things many times before. Really. What really worried me was...

My cell phone rings, suddenly interrupting my train of thought and making my royal butterfly court fly away gracefully. Which is quite awkward, since not all butterflies have auditory systems. What a fortunate coincidence it is, to have only specimens of one of those specific subspecies hovering around me just in time to mark a change with a fairly popular graphical effect! I thought this kind of thing happened only in novels!

Self-parody aside, it doesn't take a genius to find out who was calling me. Actually, it does; given the circumstances, I could be receiving a call from a video tape girl from the underworld or from a masked killer. No, wait, not only important people with lines that are actually relevant to the plot make telephone calls; it might just be someone trying to call to a pizza delivery service or something.

Yeah, like that would happen.

Honestly, I only answered the call because the name on the screen was Ryo's. My cell phone rang several times while I was running, but I wasn't thinking about it enough to pick up the calls. Now that I think about it, the one calling me as I hurried away was probably her. After leaving like a madman without saying anything to her I guess I owe her an explanation.

"You're... pretty fast, aren't you?" Breathless, Ryo sounds like she is going to pass out any minute now. It's even worse than yesterday, which is quite concerning. "I tried to follow you, but... as I said before... I don't have much stamina."

She tries to laugh to make this moment a little lighter but ends up coughing and only greatly increasing the size my worries. And there is only someone I can blame for this situation; the one whose behavior made a friend worry so much she immoderately ran after him despite her body limitations.

"I'm sorry. I really am. This is all my fa-"

"Cut it out." She suddenly stops me. We stay silent for almost a whole minute. I mean, I stay silent; she actually tried to, but I could hear her breathing through the phone. By the time she starts talking again, her breathing is once again under control, but still weaker than the usual resulting in a soft, whispery voice. "I went after you on my own, so if it is anyone's fault, it's mine. You really need to stop blaming yourself for the mistakes of other people." Despite kind of deserving it, I didn't see that coming. "Now, tell me what happened at school."

So I told her everything. I know that based on Kouma's assumption, this was a reckless thing to do; if Ryo really had big problems, I shouldn't worry her more with issues of my own. However, I couldn't help myself. I needed to talk to someone; I only noticed when I started telling the story to her, but despite trying to keep a cool state of mind I was still very, very nervous. When it comes to nerves, body and mind are not always found in the same tune, tempo or harmonic series for that matter. The result is the same as completely improvised polyrhythmic solos in live music: sometimes it might sound jazzy, intriguing and creative but mostly the results are utterly disastrous, true born mood ruiners.

There is another reason, though. I don't feel like hiding things from her. I simply don't. She is the one who had been there for me for a while, and probably the only one who really believes in me. Not in my uncommon stories who tend to become even weirder every minute, but in me as a person.

So, unless I must, I won't hide anything from my best friend. Obviously, I classify telling her "Kouma is a manipulative psychopath who thinks her good intentions make up for any bad deeds she performs" as something I must hide. For now, at least.

I'll suppress the dialogue that followed, since you already know what happened and Ryo is a very good listener, interrupting me only when I forgot to mention some detail that might have seemed quite obvious to me, but not to everyone else who doesn't happen to be inside my mind. After listening to my weird fiction-like tale, she only tells me to go home and calm down. Which would end up being just comforting common sense if she hadn't added that unusual, rather preoccupying sentence.

"Don't worry about anything, I will find a way."

I wonder if I managed to run into the mafia once again.